Creating the decimalValue method
For our Fraction class, it would be nice to have a method for converting a Fraction to a single primitive value. This is an easy computation which will result in a floating point or double number.
The decimal value of the fraction can be obtained by dividing a Fraction's numerator by its denominator.
Java considers a division operation as double or integer division based on the following rules:
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If both the operands are integers then integer division is performed.
Integer division gives the quotient(integer) of the division and the remainder of the division is ignored/lost.
For example 12/5 is 2
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If one of the operands is float or double then the division performed is double division and the result is a double value.
For example 12.0/5 is 2.4
Double division needs to be performed to get a decimal value. The following example casts both values to doubles, but it would be sufficient to only cast one value to a double as division between an int and a double in Java results in a double.
/** * Returns the decimal value of the Fraction * Precondition: None * Postcondition: None * @param None * @return A double representing the decimal value of this Fraction */ public double decimalValue() { //Explicitly change the data type of numerator and denominator. Eg. (double)var; //return the decimal value by dividing the numerator and denominator, both converted to double }
Testing
- Un-comment the code in main that prints the decimal value of the two fractions.